jimsjournal
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Yesterday was Camire's Firecracker 4-Miler road race. Roger Camire owns a running shoe store in town (Wakefield, RI) and sponsors this annual four mile race. (Roger -- and his wife, an elite marathoner in her age group -- do far more that simply sponsor this one race... they are very involved in supporting a large number of local races and other related activities, especially for families and kids.) I've run this race every year since I moved to R.I. -- correction, I have registered for every race but I did not run in the 1999 edition (I had returned from London the night before and overslept, didn't get there until almost fifteen minutes after the race had started, was going to run it anyway, but a thunderstorm had just hit and as I was getting my race number and t-shirt a bolt of lightning struck a power transformer across the road -- I took that as a sign that I should grab my shirt and go back home and relax with a cup of coffee.)
How did I do? Well, I was faster than all the people who were slower than me. Hmmm, 'cept, of course, I was slower than about two-thirds of the entrants. It took me thirty-seven and a half minutes to complete the four miles... that's about 9:23 per mile... in other words, more of a jogging pace than a running pace. I have, in the dim distant past, run five mile races in the amount of time it took me to run four miles yesterday. But, looking on the bright side, I've only really been seriously working on getting into shape since mid-June, before that I was only working out about twice a week.
There are a couple of 5k races coming up later this month that I think I'll enter... not in expectation of turning in speedy performance or anything like that... really just for fun and to provide myself a little motivation... but somewhere around here I've got an entry form for the CVS Downtown 5k in mid-September. With two and a half months to get ready, if I were really to be conscientious about it, could I improve my time to something that I might think of as being a good result? Please note that I do not expect to set any PR's ever again, unless I find some new distance to race. (PR is runner-speak for Personal Record) or if I categorize them by age... My best for a 5k is about 21:40 (about a 6:59 pace)... but I did that about eight or ten years ago... I'd be delighted to get back down to around an eight minute pace (say, around 24:51). Yeah, here I am talking about plans for improving my speed and what do you see for today's workout -- rest -- well, I am just plain physically tired and have been at it long enough to know that a rest day once a week can help maintain a workout program.
And I'm running around like crazy trying to accomplish many tasks around the house and also working on a big project at work -- writing a course -- that has a very tight deadline. With Independance Day coming right in the middle of this week I'd love to stick in some vacation days and enjoy the whole week off but I've got far too much to do on this project to be able to do that. When I had agreed to take it on, I thought I would have until the end of August to finish the writing part of the project but, as it turns out, I only have until the end of July... well, actually, a few days short of that, just three and a half weeks to go, not enough time, but I've got to hit the deadline so I will get it done... it just makes me feel very rushed.
And then there's the whole thing with the home LAN that Sean and I are attempting to set up... I decided that before we drill holes and pull cable, it would be a good idea to connect the router with one PC and see about getting it configured and running... Well, that's certainly kept Sean occupied... *grin*
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